To start off, we should just establish that cows are not my favorite.  I might even be okay with not seeing another cow again for a very long long time.  Maybe I don't even want to look at milk for a bit.  I'm sticking to soy milk from now on.  Chad and I started herding the cows up the many fields and into the milking barn, which was going perfectly smoothly until the cows decided they wanted to take a little detour off on an old beaten swamp path that neither of us had ever even NOTICED before, let alone thought that it should be blocked off.  (Gerard has since confirmed that he doesn't block it off because the cows always take no notice of it and just pass it by and continue up to the barn.  The cows decided today, when Chad and I were in charge, would be a good day for some exploring.)  Once one cow starts going, there is no stopping the rest of them.  They all filed happily into the swamp, which Chad and I had to try and wade around in frantically trying to herd them back to the main path.  We finally get them headed out, but all the cows walking about created a literal quicksand muck at the opening which I get stuck in, and on top of that, they decide to all turn the wrong way and start hurrying off into far off distant fields in the complete opposite direction.  Some of them even break over the fences into areas that I still don't know if Gerard owns, or if they were loose on someone else's property.  Picture me, literally knee-deep stuck in the mud, trying ridiculously to find my boots, both of which have fallen off and have been swallowed by the muck, while Chad is running, waving his hands, and shouting at sixty cows all intent doing exactly the opposite of what he was screaming at them.  (When I said in an earlier post that there were fifty cows I was wrong- sixty is the total count)  The family dog, Jack, followed us down and did what I'm sure he thought was helping by barking at the cows and getting them to run around.  Problem was, Jack always chose to herd them in exactly the opposite direction of where we wanted, and every time we got them almost going the right way, he would bark and terrify them into scattering about.  In the end, Chad had to carry Jack up through the fields so he wouldn't run the cows into the wrong direction, and Jack is not a small dog.  Getting these cows assembled, in the barn, and milked was an evening-long process.  Eventually Gerard came home once we had started the milking, took one look at our exhausted expressions and filthy suits (remember, I spent a good portion of this time shoeless in the mud- needless to say I was a mess), and told us to go inside and shower; he would finish up.  I was extremely grateful to him.  Looking at this scene now, I am fully aware of how absurdly hysterical it is.  We've already laughed pretty hard about it, and I have no doubt in twenty years we are going to love reliving this story.  Believe me, at the time none of this was funny.         
On a much less exhausting and ridiculous note, we spent two days in a town called Dingle last week.  Dingle is a small fisherman's town, right by the ocean.  I would say it has the feel to it that Maine does, except with the addition of cobblestone streets and different accents.  I really loved Dingle.  We spent a long time walking about the streets, stopping in little shops and their farmer's market.  From the farmer's market stands we bought cheese truffles (just because they sounded interesting) and baguettes, which we ate for lunch by the water.  We also tried 'spaghetti of the sea,' which turns out is seaweed.  I wasn't a fan, but Chad said he liked it.  Dingle is famous for their mascot dolphin named Fungi, which swims around the bay and shows off for tourist outings that boat out to see him.  Chad and I decided to take the cheaper way, so we walked along the beach, climbing over the rocks out to where Fungi stays.  Our timing was lucky because we arrived just as a tourist boat did, so from a distance we could see him swimming around in the water.  We made a new friend who joined us on our walk, and stayed with us the entire afternoon; a friendly dog who we named Squirrel Tail because...he had a tail that looked like a squirrel's.  No deep hidden metaphor in that name.  We were sad to leave him at the end of the afternoon, and wished there was a way to package him back home with us.